


What to Do When You're the Only Sane One in a Ten-Planet Radius, A Guide by Captain Rex

by FrostOnGalway



Series: How Asajj Ventress Saved the Galaxy [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: CT-7567 | Rex Needs a Hug, Clones Are People Too, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Abuse, Multilingual Character, Rex is a good bro, War, clone feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18712258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostOnGalway/pseuds/FrostOnGalway
Summary: Fighting in a war is hard when you have about twelve years of life experience, and Rex is one of the old ones. He's got some thoughts on how to keep his idiot Jedi alive, how to keep his idiot brothers in line, how to keep his idiot friends from losing it, and how to keep his idiot Jedi's idiot master from ruining everything with his stupidly noble, self-sacrificing routine.Actually, scratch that last one. Turns out idiot Jedi's idiot master has kidnapped Rex's idiot friend, leaving Rex in charge of his own idiot battalion AND the 212th. Just perfect.Scenes from How Asajj Ventress Saved the Galaxy and Got Zero Credit from Rex's perspective.





	1. Rangir

**Author's Note:**

> This is strictly a companion to How Asajj Ventress Saved the Galaxy and Got Zero Credit. It probably will not make sense without that fic, and there will be many spoilers if you haven't read the main fic (but if you have read it there are no spoilers here).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All foreign words are Mando'a. See bottom note for translations.

            It was a kriffed up mission from the start, if you’ll pardon Rex’s language. Rinndio II is not the worst place he has ever run a mission by any standard—not by a long shot—but it’s not his favorite, either. He has seen more hostile environments, more unfriendly wildlife and locals, heavier enemy occupation, more dangerous mission parameters, and _gods_ , worse officers to serve under. Still, something about this place seems off from the beginning.

            First, there is the poisonous gas. ARC trooper suits come with built-in air filtration systems, but the standard-issue armor for regular troops does not. This mission required special requisitions for the entire 501st and 212th, which was a pain. It also makes him nervous to be so dependent. Troopers aren’t supposed to take off their buckets while on-mission anyway, but the added danger leaves even less room for mistakes than usual. It bothers General Skywalker, too, he can tell.

            General Kenobi seems less concerned, which in turn drives Cody wild. Rex can see all the scenarios for how this could go wrong running through Cody’s mind. He imagines that often enough with his own _jetii_ to recognize it in the glazed, slightly horrified look in Cody’s eyes. It is not that General Kenobi doesn’t care about the brothers—he does, more than many generals—but Kenobi has so little self-preservation at times. He seems more focused on the objective than worried about what could happen, unlike General Skywalker. On a good day, the Generals’s roles would be reversed, but no one around here has had a good day in some time now, aside from when the Commander showed up.

            That brings Rex to the second reason the mission gives him a bad feeling. General Skywalker has gone through some— _changes_ —since the Commander left. Rex had hoped some time on Coruscant would smooth him out—if anything does, it’s usually time with the Commander or the Senator. This time, though, he got back on the transport looking worse than when he got off.

            It’s not that Rex doesn’t trust his _jetii_. The thing about General Skywalker is that he is reckless, but his recklessness is usually for a crazy plan, and his crazy ideas are usually _right._ He sees things no one else does. And he never puts the men in more danger than he puts himself. But lately, there is an edge to his recklessness that Rex doesn’t like. He keeps pushing the limit, almost like he _wants_ to—well, this war is making a lot of people lose hope. It’s just that the General is supposed to _give_ people hope—give Rex hope—not keep throwing himself into dangerous situations like he has a death wish.

            The third reason this mission makes Rex uneasy is that they don’t really have a plan. Sure, they never complete a mission with Plan Aurek. Sometimes the plan is just a simple ‘go in, and if someone shoots at you, shoot back’, but they always have something. Not in an _olan sim’olan_ would Rex expect the mission to go off without a hitch, but he would like something a little more concrete than ‘find the bases that are probably here somewhere and destroy them, but we don’t know what type or how many or how heavily armed’.

Rex likes to know how concerned he should be so he can worry the appropriate amount. Cody is an _ori’vod_ to Rex in many ways, a mentor in others. Rex knows him better than the inside of his bucket. He’s learned a lot from Cody, including which mistakes to avoid. Worrying too much is one of them, so Rex does his best to evade that. It’s just hard when he has no idea what they’re getting into and they’ve already been down one and a half COs for months.

            The point is, Rex has a bad feeling about Rinndio II. Some days, he loves being right. There is a rule among the brothers that he is not to be allowed into any more betting pools because they’re all convinced he has insider information—sometimes that is true, but he also has wicked intuition on his side—so Rex always has to convince some shiny to make the bet in his stead for a cut of the profits. Other days—like the day General Skywalker almost dies on some backwater moon from a combination of asphyxiation, air poisoning, malnutrition, stim overdose, and Force exhaustion—Rex really, really hates being right. _Asayi’ada an bal rangir,_ he hates being right sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More bonus content to celebrate Star Wars Week! Yay!  
> Again, if you would like to make a request, guidelines are below. I'm realizing now that I should have announced the request thing weeks ago so my inbox had time to build up, because comments are typically pretty slow in coming. Oh well, live and learn.  
> I tried really hard to get fancy and figure out mouse-over text translations, but it's kind of complicated and I can't code. Sorry! I'll just offer them here:  
> jetii-Jedi (singular, plural would be jetiise)  
> olan sim'olan-hundred centuries  
> ori'vod-big brother, in this case  
> asayi’ada an bal-f**k all and  
> rangir-to hell with it  
> For nerds like me, some helpful translation sites are http://mandoa.org/ (a searchable dictionary) and http://starwars.myrpg.org/coruscant_translator.php (a text translator). I am not an expert, so correct me if I'm wrong on something!
> 
> Request/Suggestion Rules  
> 1) Requests must pertain to my AU. I will look at ideas outside of the universe I have created, but I can't promise to fill them soon, if ever.  
> 2) Keep it to something I can write as a short. Main story ideas, queries, and requests are welcome as a general rule--that's how the in-story roommate background flashback came about--but if I'm going to fill it this week it needs to be something I can reasonably write in a day.  
> 3) Things I will write:  
> backstory or alternate POV (as in, a scene from the main fic written from another character's perspective) on any non-villain character who has a role in my fic. Basically, I will write anyone from the POV characters of the main fic to Ventress, Rex, Obi-Wan, Danji, DD, Gida, Artoo, or anyone else you're particularly interested in. (I think I covered my main bases, though.)  
> special scenes not featured in the main fic but referenced in it/relevant to it/fitting into its universe. I don't know what this would be exactly, but if for example you wanted a scene about the early stages of Anakin's eating disorder or a day in the life of Artoo I could do that.  
> humorous summary of the main story so far or behind-the-scenes peek at some of my story notes/writing process. I even made a meme for myself about the story.  
> my headcanons about any character (villains included) that you would like to hear more about.  
> 4) Things I will not write:  
> sex scenes/porn. I think I made my policy on this clear in an author's note at some point, but who knows when that was or if anyone reads these things all the way through. I know I don't always. I love me some Anidala romance, but I won't do explicit.  
> AU's of my AU. I'm not against this on principle. In fact, it sounds fun. But I don't want to do that right now because I want to focus on building up the world of my actual story. Ask me again in six months.  
> spoilers for the main fic. everything must either be 100% spoiler-free or only allude to future events without giving anything away. Believe me, I would talk about my future plans all day if I could.
> 
> Despite all of the above requirements, I really would love to try some requests. If you have an idea, don't let my big list intimidate you from sharing it! I will accept them even after this week is over.


	2. It Can't Get Any Worse, Right?

            Rex has never been a particularly optimistic person. Part of that is his upbringing and life experience to date, but another part of it is just his natural outlook. He’s known plenty of brothers who constantly try to cheer up their compatriots—and mostly end up annoying them instead—with thoughts of how much worse their lives could be.

            Still, there’s a certain confidence that surges through him—just like every other brother—anytime he hears the promise that ‘Skywalker and Kenobi are on it.’ For a long time, he didn’t question this. Sure, the two are almost always bickering, but that’s just their special language. Eventually, he started to see the cracks: Skywalker’s anger and hurt that never seem to fully subside, Kenobi’s sad looks and aborted gestures that always fall just short of reaching Skywalker’s notice, how the both of them have the best of intentions but the poodoo always, _always_ , hits the fan. The brothers don’t always see it, but Rex does. Cody must, though he and Rex never speak of it. The Commander was a bit young to understand such things in the beginning, so brash and naïve. By the end, Rex thinks she was beginning to catch on.

            She couldn’t have missed the huge fight after the Hardeen Incident. Yes, it was over General Kenobi faking his death, but there were other issues in play too. The Commander’s presence smoothed things over between them. When she—when she had to leave, the cracks came back.

            It’s different though. Before, if the two were fighting, General Skywalker would get _gedin’la_ and storm off to the hangar to work on his jet with his droid. Kenobi would avoid him for a while and then they would patch things up again. These days, Rex can’t tell when they’re fighting because General Skywalker never _stops_ being _gedin’la_ , although a better description might be _echoy’la._

            However contentious their relationship is off the field, when the battle begins Skywalker and Kenobi are always in perfect sync. Rex admires that level of compartmentalization in someone who isn’t programmed for it. Then again, maybe _jetiise_ are.

            The point is, when the Generals split off to take out the cannons, Rex is expecting a daring, timely resolution. What he gets instead is a bloody kriffing mess. But if the battle for the first factory that nearly results in two dead generals—but hey, they win the factory—is a disaster, it’s nothing compared to the aftermath.

            Rex doesn’t go with the med-evac that rushes General Skywalker back to _Resolute_. General Kenobi is with him. He got knocked out and very slightly poisoned, but nothing a day in medbay won’t fix. Someone has to stay back and handle the cleanup. Rex and Cody are left behind to oversee the ground troops in mopping up the last of the droids from this factory and decamping to somewhere they can besiege the next one.

            Rex pushes past the twisting in his gut and does his duty. When General Kenobi comms, though, Rex stops mid-sentence, marches a few brisk paces away from the trooper he was instructing with only an uplifted finger as explanation, and answers.

            “Rex here.”

            “Captain, I’ve got an update on Anakin’s condition.”

            “Yes, sir?”

            “He’s been stabilized. He was even conscious, just briefly. Kix is optimistic about his injuries. But, well, it’s not just the poisoning and the blaster wound.”

            “No, sir.”

            “You knew about—what do you mean?”

            Rex doesn’t sigh. It’s not _his_ General on the other end of the line. He says, as professionally as he can, “You can put a ration bar in a man’s hand, but you can’t make him eat. And you can reassign his watches and practically shove him in his tent, but you can’t make him sleep. Sir,” he tacks on.

            Kenobi does sigh. “You’re not wrong. But this goes past a simple lack of sleep or not enough to eat. He’s not—can you recall the last time you saw him eat a full meal? Or actually lie down and rest? Because I certainly can’t.”

            “No, sir,” Rex says like his ears aren’t roaring.

            “I knew it was bad, but I didn’t really know anything at all. You know, he was close enough to dying already he really didn’t need any of the extra help today? He was beyond dehydrated. Relying on stims and the Force to stay awake and walking—nearly overdosed on stims, by the way, although that’s better than the painkillers he was abusing when Ahso—” he stops abruptly.

 _You’re a failure_ , something inside Rex screams. _Look at what’s happened to your_ jetii. _How did you not see this?_

            “I’m sorry,” Kenobi says over Rex’s silence. “I shouldn’t be unloading all of this on you. And that last part, I really shouldn’t—it’s not my place to say that. He really—it’s not an issue anymore.”

            Rex says nothing. His head is too loud.

            “Captain? Are you there? I’m so sorry. Let my temper get away from me. Won’t happen again.”

            Rex doesn’t give a karking kriff about Kenobi’s temper. _Tahla’ada._ _Sorry Cody, but kriff Kenobi and his kriffing temper._

            “Do you copy? Please respond, Captain.”

            “I copy. Sorry, sir.”

            “Please don’t apologize, Captain. I’m the one saying what he shouldn’t.”

 _Kriff Kenobi’s pointless politeness at a time like this_. “It’s alright, sir,” he says. “I’d appreciate another update when you have it.”

            “Of course,” Kenobi says like he hasn’t just sent Rex spiraling down a sarlacc hole of guilt and worry. “I’ll speak to you again later.”

            He hangs up and that’s that. Rex takes two deep breaths, lets out a tiny noise that won’t be heard outside his helmet, and walks back over to the trooper he left standing by the munitions supply.

            Things go downhill from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rex is an excellent vehicle for writing all kinds angst, so I've been writing the ideas that keep coming to me for his POV. Main fic will return eventually, but in the meantime we get to hear from our boy Rex. Also, this chapter contains some new information not released in the main fic. Nothing earth-shattering, just some headcanons that may or may not be mentioned in the main fic later. Hope you guys enjoyed this.
> 
> Translations:  
> gedin'la-cranky, in a mood (literally "almost insane")  
> echoy'la-searching, mourning, lost  
> jetiise-plural of Jedi  
> tahla'ada-f**k
> 
> Note on Mando'a: all of their words are pretty warrior or family oriented, so it's kind of hard to find the stuff I want at times. Thankfully, Rex is a family-oriented warrior, so most things work out. I just think it's kind of interesting that the earth-knowledge we have on them reflects our canon knowledge of Mando culture.
> 
> I apologize for the greater than usual amount of language. Rex is having a really bad day, guys. He needs love, not swear-shaming.


	3. It Gets Worse

            When the base camp is set up, Rex returns to the  _Resolute_. His first duty is to attend the strategy meeting of the commanding officers. With General Skywalker indefinitely out of the picture and the two new factories recon has turned up, they need to rethink their plan of attack.

            The meeting is shorthanded today. General Skywalker is obviously unable to attend, so Rex does his best to fill in for him. Cody is only present via holo, because someone has to stay on the ground. General Kenobi was only recently released from medical—they kept him overnight for the concussion. He is present but preoccupied. Admiral Yularen is here, but Admiral Block is still on the  _Negotiator_ , and attends only through holo.

            Once that is over, Rex’s next job is to brief his junior officers on their new assignments. The air forces in particular just got redistributed, so Rex makes sure his pilots are prepared. He trusts his brothers to follow their new orders, of course, but it’s better to take precautions than count bodies.

            His next stop is the medbay. Rex read the damage reports, but that’s no substitute for checking on his brothers himself. Besides, with General Skywalker incapacitated they could use the encouragement. He walks from _vod_ to _vod_ , clasping hands and cracking jokes. At the quiet bedsides, he stands for a moment with his hand on whatever part of them it’s safe to touch and says a few whispered words of _Mando’a_.

            He checks in with Kix, who tells Rex that General Skywalker is probably asleep, but that a visitor might help him perk up a little. He’s been even more quiet since General Kenobi was discharged.

            Rex ignores the funny feeling in his gut and goes to see his _jetii_. He is still a few corridors away from the correct room when someone runs into him at full speed. Rex hits the floor.

            Rex stands back up, ready to deal with an emergency or dole out a reprimand, but still sprawled where he fell is the—

            “General?”

            Skywalker jumps to his feet with alarming speed and immediately sways. Rex grabs him as he stumbles. “Are you alright?”

            He doesn’t seem to recognize Rex at all, just mumbles incoherently and strains against Rex’s hold on his arms.

            “Where are you going?” Rex asks. Skywalker keeps his head down and keeps pushing forward. “General Skywalker!”

            The General tries to duck away, but Rex holds him. He rips one of Rex’s hands away with one arm and goes for a clumsy punch with the other. Rex uses the other’s imbalance to shove the General against the wall and hold him there with the arm not caught in the General’s metal grip. The General’s gaze finally snaps up, but he’s looking past Rex, not at him. Rex looks at him, though, and what he sees is—

            Rex remembers the first time a grenade went off near him in a battle. He was firing on his belly from a foxhole. The grenade went off and he was tossed up and back down. Just a few inches. Just enough for his head to snap back in a nasty case of whiplash. It was loud. Just loud enough for his ears to ring.

            The spinning slowed enough that he could look around. Everything was the same. He looked over at the brother he was sharing the hole with, Pintsize. His bucket was off, knocked away by the blast. Rex rolled toward him. He tried to ask “where’s your bucket?” but he couldn’t hear himself speak.

            The blast was just enough to disorient him, but he reached out a hand for Pintsize and noticed his sightless eyes. He had died while Rex was still reeling from the impact.

            That feeling he had then, it’s like that now. Looking at General Skywalker—blood running down the arm already bandaged with a blastershot wound, babbling about Ahsoka and Sith and apologizing over and over, paler than a shiny’s armor, and honest-to-the-gods tears running down his cheeks—Rex feels just like he did when Pintsize died. He’s looking in horror and realizing that what’s broken here he can’t fix. The only thing to do is honor the body as best he can—he closed Pintsize’s staring eyes—and complete the objective alone.

            He tries to ask some more questions, to make some sense of the General’s mutterings.

            The General struggles feebly against Rex’s arm pinning him to the wall. With a sudden burst of strength, he shoves Rex away with a shout. Rex hits the opposite wall with an impact that had to be Force-assisted.

_Perfect. Armed, dangerous, and back to using the Force to solve his problems._

            It’s not a generous thing to think. Rex tries to shake his head clear and gets dizzy. He breathes through it for a second and then runs after the General.

            He moves fast for how injured he is, but there’s also quite a bit of blood zigzagging across the floor and smeared on the walls and a stream of terrified brothers to point him in the right direction. Thankfully, they all move aside to let him take the lead, but they follow him as he follows the General. Somehow, Kix catches up to him. It would have been nice if he had arrived five minutes earlier with a sedative, but now’s not the time for Rex’s uncharitable thoughts.

            They catch up to him in the hangar. With no wall to lean against, the General weaves drunkenly where he stands. Rex starts forward carefully as he looks around the hangar bay in a daze. He lurches forward into a run again, but at the same moment Rex tackles him to the ground. He places a hand behind the General’s head to protect him as they hit the deck.

            Kix leaps in immediately to stem the blood spurting from his arm. Rex does what he can to assist. Some quick-thinking brother called in backup, and more medics arrive with a stretcher.

            When the General is somewhat stable and loaded on the stretcher, Rex stands up to do damage control. Normally, he’s pretty stern with his brothers. But there’s a time for sternness and there’s a time to simply be kind. He learned that from his General.

            His boys are tough but seeing their beloved _jetii_ lose his senses and nearly die in front of them rattles even the most stoic. It would probably be easier to soothe all the stunned brothers around him if his armor wasn’t smeared with blood, but Rex keeps his voice steady and says, “It’s alright. Kix will take care of him now. If any of you need to talk to me, feel free to do that. But don’t—don’t spread this around, alright? The General needs his privacy just like anyone else.” He lets a little sternness creep back in as he says, “I don’t want to hear this being discussed in the mess, or there’ll be hell to pay and KP for everyone. Got it?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Good. Can I get some volunteers to help me with the hallway?”

 

            Over the course of the next few days, nearly everyone from the 501st who saw what happened and a few brothers from the 212th, who happened to be in the  _Resolute’s_ hangar at the time, come up to him privately to inquire after the General’s health. Redbucket doesn’t, but that’s because he gets sent planetside the next day and is killed taking down one of the factories. Triggerfinger doesn’t either, but he’s shot down in a dogfight only hours after he helps Rex scrub the General’s blood off the floor before word can get around. The rest of them—the ones who make it a few more days, he’s long since stopped calling them the lucky ones—they all come to him. They don’t ask for news on the General. They talk about anything else, make up some other excuse to seek him out.

            Honestly, he has no kriffing ideas what to tell his _vod’e._ But he is their Captain, and they need him. They need someone to reassure them because it turns out the strongest among them—their hero, their General, their brother—is really not so strong, and maybe he’s in no fit state to be anybody’s hero right now.

            Among the brothers, they’ve taken to answering questions of “are you alright?” with “I’ll be alright when the war is over.” None of them can promise it’s true. The galaxy at large treats them like outsiders. Who knows if any of them will be able to integrate into civilian life after what they’ve seen and done. Who is to say if any of them will even live to see the war end?

            Rex is their Captain, and they are his _vod’e_. General Skywalker is just a _vod_ with a different face and some unusual tricks up his sleeve. Rex is as loyal to him as he is to his brothers. One he owes privacy. The others he owes honesty. When each of those boys comes to him asking about anything but the General, before each of them leaves Rex says, “He’ll be alright when the war’s over, just like the rest of us.”

            To General Skywalker, who listens to his reports like one of the cadet-sized brothers—Rex is learning all kinds of things about his general lately that he never wanted to know, never wanted these things about him to exist at all—Rex says during every call, “We’re alright, General.” It is not a lie, because he doesn’t mean it in the same way as when he talks to his brothers. They want to know what will happen after, but for General Skywalker there is only the now. He reassures his general that they are still alive. The rest can follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, there's a lot going on in this chapter. I am swamped in Clone Feels and Rex Feels and Anakin Feels. Also, matching this chapter up with the trippy weirdness of the corresponding scene in the main fic was kinda difficult. (translation: I wanted to tear my hair out.) I really like this chapter, I just hope it doesn't sound disjointed. I may have spent too much time working in headcanons instead of moving the plot forward, but what is fanfic for if not that? (I did cut some of the headcanon rambling, or leave it implied, but there's still a lot.)
> 
> I honestly finished this chapter instead of working on the main fic. I know the fight with Anakin and Dooku is really important and exciting, but I want it to be super awesome and that's not going to happen until my brain comes off strike. Feels and headcanons I can do though, so you guys get Rex to tide you over.
> 
> Come drown in feelings with me in the comments section! I need someone to cry with about basically everything in this chapter.


End file.
